“Why would she do that?”

“Because my name’s Martin McGee.”

“Then who is Marty McFly?”

“You have to know who Marty McFly is.”

“A sports guy?”

My laugh is the blow horn now. It scares her. “Come to my party tonight,” I say. “I’ll lend you Back to the Future.”

“Where’s it at?” she asks. It looks like one of her cheeks gets red, but it’s hard to tell when she’s facing the other direction. Her hair’s curled in that way all girls seem to do for special occasions, pieces of it twisted like coiled ribbons around her head. She wraps one strand around her finger until it becomes a perfect brown spiral.

“My place,” I tell the girl. “Mama Dorothy lets me use our basement for parties. Everyone has to put their car keys in a bowl and promise to spend the night if they drink. I live right behind the school.” I point toward the trees beyond the field. “Ugly orange house with a basketball hoop in the driveway. You can’t miss it.”

“Cool,” she says. She puts her hands in her lap and starts chipping off the sparkly stuff on her nails.

* * *

This whole ordeal is supposed to be my last punishment, closing up shop on the era that will someday be known as the time Petra just graduated. Emphasis on the word just, as if plain graduation is a disease to be contracted, because there isn’t anything to follow it with, such as in the top ten, like my sister Jessica, or even better, as the valedictorian, like my sister Caroline.

Just graduated.

But here’s Martin McGee. Interrupting me.

“Gotta kill the time,” he says, “or this thing is gonna kill me.” He has the delivery of a stand-­up comedian, every word crackling with extra flair so that no sentence sounds ordinary.

“I hear you,” I respond, wiping away the newest beads of sweat forming along my hairline. I spent half an hour curling my hair just right, and the heat has been trying its hardest to undo all my work.

Our principal cuts in front of the man reciting the names. “In the interest of time, we ask that everyone refrain from making any noises for the remainder of the ceremony. Thank you.”

Someone boos in an act of defiance.

“Wow. Gotta love this town,” Martin mutters under his breath.

I’ve never understood why you’re supposed to feel this unfounded disdain for where you come from, as if it is the unclassiest, most smothering place that ever existed. “I like it just fine,” I say to him.

“You might be the first.”

We go quiet again.

* * *